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Breakup Survival Guide

You invested time and energy in this relationship and now it’s over. Now what???

A word of caution: this guide is not meant to be put into practice all at once! However, if you will work through these steps as they feel good to you, you will recover much faster, be much stronger and your will know what you want your next relationship to look like.

Give yourself time to grieve. This step can never be stressed enough. Dive into your feelings for a while, have a good cry, get it all out. There is nothing noble about holding in your feelings and in the long run it will slow down your healing process. You can’t heal from the pain until you admit there is pain. By hiding it, ignoring it, or burying it all you do is produce scar tissue…which will hurt you later.

Get good and angry. Get angry that he/she didn’t see your worth, get angry that you didn’t kick him/her to the curb months ago, just get angry. Why, you might ask? Because anger is on a better emotional level than despair, depression, all those things the grieving process may have left you with. You needed to get those feelings out, now it’s time to climb back up the emotional scale.

Count your blessings. A friend and mentor of mine says: “When I don’t get what I want, I have learned to say thank you.” There is some reason that this relationship did not work out. Look beyond the circumstance for example, if the cause of the breakup was cheating, then be thankful that you didn’t remain in relationship where that would likely continue. Be thankful that you now have the opportunity to meet that person who will appreciate who you really are.

Get to know yourself again. Now is a good time to really get to know yourself. Chances are you were so busy being a couple that you put some parts of yourself on the back burner. Is there anything that you enjoy doing that you stopped doing while you were part of a couple? Why not pick that up again. Do some things that will make you feel good, spend some time getting back in touch with what makes you happy. Which brings us to the next point:

Figure out what would make you happy. If you read that sentence and thought “Well, a new relationship, what else?” That’s not what I mean. What I mean is what would really make you happy? Do you like to go out? Do you like travel? Do you like quiet evenings at home? Do you like to dance the night away? Are you all about improving your mind? In other words, what are the things that drive you, not the things you think will make you good wife or girlfriend material.

Set your standards. Take a long hard look at this last relationship and maybe one or two before that. What were the things that you loved about those relationships? What were the things that you really didn’t like? Take a look at the relationships of some of your friends, what are the qualities about those relationships that you like and what are the ones that you don’t like. Make a list of these things and use them to set your standards for your next relationship.

You're thinking of moving ...

... and hoping the distance will naturally end the relationship. "No, honey, don't bother moving across country with me (even though you could). We'll just do long distance," said no happily committed person ever.

Similar to this guy's story, you're desperately hoping that the other person will simply stop calling at some point if you make a pilgrimage somewhere else ... anywhere else.

You've launched an ambitious self-improvement routine.

Gym attendance at an all time high? Check. Finally lost that spare tire? Check. Sudden new interest in grooming when you didn't care before? Yup. The act of eyeing the door has launched you off the couch and back into looking-for-a-mate fighting shape.

Public displays of affection suddenly annoy the hell out of you!

Do you find yourself flinching (or even wanting to scream) every time your paramour plasters signs of their devotion all over your Facebook wall? Have you given up on commenting in hopes of "not encouraging it"? Have you locked your social media accounts to prevent posts by others?

Since you started pulling away, your partner has redoubled their efforts to win you over in ways that you're starting to consider deeply pathetic.

You've restarted a time-consuming hobby (for some alone time).

Suddenly, there's no time like the present to re-ignite your long-dormant personal goals. That popsicle stick model of the Eiffel tower (to scale, of course) that you started in 8th grade suddenly demands you finish it.

You've stopped making decisions that protect your relationship.

You've solidly rocketed yourself right into IDGAF (I don't give a f*ck) territory when it comes to making decisions. You no longer care whether the other person is irritated, pissed-off or inconvenienced by anything you do. In fact, you welcome their displeasure, since in a small way it gets the message across that you're done.

You've delivered the "you're too good for me" speech.

In a futile effort to drive them far, far away, you've had that talk that goes, "Dah-ling, I'm a senseless disaster (fill in your own adjectives) who could never, ever be as nice to you as you are to me. I don't want to tie you down/hold you back/dull your shine."

... and hoping the distance will naturally end the relationship. "No, honey, don't bother moving across country with me (even though you could). We'll just do long distance," said no happily committed person ever.

Similar to this guy's story, you're desperately hoping that the other person will simply stop calling at some point if you make a pilgrimage somewhere else ... anywhere else.